For high-speed photography, electronic imaging and other purposes, it is often necessary to provide intense broadband illumination. For providing a single burst of intense illumination lasers have been employed but are expensive and do not provide broadband illumination. An argon candle is also known for providing a one-time intense light burst that destroys the lamp. Such argon candles are also potentially destructive of their surroundings and are prone to malfunction. For repetitive light bursts, strobe lamps are known and can be made extremely cheaply however inexpensive lamps are not usually useful for high repetition rate applications. In addition, existing strobe lamps cannot handle very high power and therefore cannot provide levels of illumination necessary for many purposes. Surface discharge lamps are also known but have not achieved the necessary performance for many purposes.